MICA hosts travel study programme for Haas B-School students

January 20: MICA hosted the Travel Study Programme for students from the Haas School of Business College, University of California (Berkeley), from the 28th of December 2014 to the 14th of January 2015, providing the necessary platform for them to study and evaluate Dholera- "The Smart City in the Making", in India.

Dholera is currently in its initial tendering stages. Students who were part of the visit under the Haas Travel Study Programme got opportunities to combine academic curriculum with an international engagement.

These students under the guidance of Solomon Darwin, Executive Director, Garwood Centre for Corporate Innovation, UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business, examined the situation at Dholera, by interacting with the architects, engineers, business partners, investors, city managers, supply chains and the government, along with researchers from MICA in Ahmedabad.

Dr. Nagesh Rao, President and Director, MICA along with Professor U.T. Rao, Faculty Member and Chair of MICA Incubator, MICA, had also conducted lectures for them.

The students also got an opportunity to take back plenty of insights from the Indian market.

India's growing urban population, in combination with constrained financial and natural resources, are shaping the requirements for an evolution towards smarter, safer and greener cities - placing pressure on governments and municipalities to invest in sustainable infrastructure, deploy information and communication systems and deliver services to their citizens and their workers.

India has been a champion in employing frugal innovations due to a resource constrained environment surrounded by many barriers. Frugal innovations likely to be used first in the developing world, eventually migrate to the industrialised world.

A recent study measured that the global urban population consisted of only 3% in the 1800s and grew exponentially since: 14% in1900s, 30% in 1950s, and 50% in 2008.

It is projected to be at 75% by 2050. Recently Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as a part of his "Make in India Campaign", had announced development of 100 Smart Cities with Dholera in Gujarat, being one of its ambitious projects.

As a part of the evaluation, the students will submit a smart city proposal for each of the five Bay Area cities in California in the USA, in April 2015. They will engage with the City Mayor's office to carry out their projects.

The scope and type of smart city projects will be determined by the needs of the city and the Mayor's office. The city mayors are expected to judge the final presentations.

About MICAEstablished in 1991, MICA is the first residential institute in the country and perhaps in the Asia-Pacific region, dedicated to creating Leadership in Strategic Marketing and Communication. For further information, visit www.mica.ac.in